Community Agenda Assessment Project

The Ray Marshall Center at the University of Texas at Austin (RMC) is conducting a research project to assist the United Way Capital Area (UWCA) develop a Community Agenda on health and human services within the 10-county Capital Area region. The research is designed to lead to a synthesis of existing information and stakeholder perspectives on the priorities in health and human services. Specifically, RMC is charged as follows:

Phase I: Identify, collect and analyze existing regional data on the state of major health and human services issues, indicators and demographic trend; and

Phase II: Gauge the perspectives of major stakeholders across the ten-county area regarding major issues, root causes, solutions and prospects for health and human services.

The Ray Marshall Center will produce a data analysis report as a result of Phase I work. The data analysis report will present major indicators of demographic trends, several indicators under important issue areas related to health and human services, a summary listing of the issues or priority issues previously identified by stakeholders through community assessment or planning processes in recent years, and a number of regional and county-specific highlights based on data and issues analysis.

The report of the Phase II work will be a summary of findings based on analysis of input from different types of stakeholders in the ten counties. Specifically, stakeholder input is sought on the following topics:

The way stakeholders define their community;

Their vision for that community, or how they would like it to be;

What issues they believe are “in the way” of realizing this vision for their community;

The issues that they think are the highest priority;

Their thoughts on the possible root causes, or “drivers” behind the problem or issue;

Their ideas for possible solutions or approaches for addressing these root causes; and

Their perspectives on the highest priorities for initial action, based on the highest priority issues and the responses that would leverage results.

To the extent possible, the Phase II report will also attempt to compare the issues and priorities that loom largest in the perspectives of the stakeholders and comparable data points on such issues and priorities.